


The Only Relief From Death

by sphilia



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Sunless Skies
Genre: Babies, Exceptional Story Spoilers (Fallen London), Other, Ownership, Relationship Negotiation, agender sky-captain, but you can painstakingly carve out common ground bit by bit if you try, food & care-taking as a love language, for Homecoming specifically, roughly canon-typical sex scene, spoilers for the Chiropterous Hoarder’s personal story, tfw your perspectives are fundamentally alien to each other, vaguely defined sky-captain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27228715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphilia/pseuds/sphilia
Summary: They opened this can of worms (sleeping with a thousand-year-old space alien), now they have to lie in it (the uncertainty of whether or not it's even reasonable to think they could have had a hand in the birth of a certain litter of tiny bat creatures shortly after, and if it’s weird to want to be involved).Or, if you assist a semi-eldritch being in its quest for immortality, it might decide to keep you.
Relationships: Mr Apples | Mr Hearts/Original Character(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 37





	The Only Relief From Death

**Author's Note:**

> How do you do, fellow Master fuckers. Please take this offering.
> 
> Um. Spoilers for bits of the aftermath of the Exceptional Story Homecoming for no reason except that the storylet title "A Master's kiss" keeps me up at night.
> 
> Enjoy.

The Chiropterous Hoarder squints blearily, regarding the Sky-Captain with uncomprehending suspicion. It looks... worse than they expected, hunched over one of its mismatched tables and desks cluttered with jars and treasures as if leaning on it is all that is holding it up.

"Do I what," it demands, voice an unpleasant rasp.

"Do. You. Want me. To babysit," the Captain repeats slowly. "You've been holed up in your chambers for weeks, alone with a bunch of new-borns. You look exhausted."

The Hoarder bristles, fluffing itself to inhuman height, but the effect is somewhat marred by the way it sways on its feet.

"I have been fulfilling all my duties," it says tightly. A pair of bright eyes peeks out from over its collar; another from under one large ear.

"You have, admirably. That's not what I'm talking about." The Captain hesitates, weighing their words carefully. "You don't _have_ to do everything all alone. There's help available."

"My kind do not 'help' each other."

"Well," the Captain says steadily, "You're not with your kind, are you?"

Despite its apparent weariness, it still cuts quite a figure when it moves abruptly across the chamber, into the Captain's personal space, and _looms_ , studying them, perhaps, for signs of treachery. All that attention bears down on them like a physical presence, and it takes all of their considerable discipline not to visibly swallow around the sudden dryness of their tongue. Perhaps they shouldn’t have closed the door behind them.

"Why would you do this?"

"Because I'm your captain," they say slowly, mustering all the sincerity they’re capable of into their voice; the Hoarder leans impossibly closer, star-speckled eyes darting to follow the movement of their lips. It’s making it a tad difficult to think, under such scrutiny, but they press on. "I have a duty of care to you. To all passengers on this engine."

They self-consciously clear their throat. "That is, if you'll trust me with their safety for a few hours, you can wash up and take a nap." Wash up, or groom itself, or whatever it is it normally does to keep clean but has clearly been neglecting, judging by the visible matting in its fur. The Captain studiously refrains from imagining whatever such ablutions might look like.

The Hoarder considers the matter, eyes half closed, for so long that the Captain almost begins to worry that it has already succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep right there on its feet, but, at last, it draws a shuddering breath and sticks a hand into the long fur at its neck.

"Lack of rest is impairing my cognitive judgement," it grumbles, and deposits an impossibly small ball of shiny, dark fur into the Captain's hands. Then another. And another. Enough of them that they wouldn't all fit in their arms if half of the enterprising little creatures weren't already clawing their way up their coat. The Hoarder glowers at the ease with which the traitorous scraps take to their temporary new host.

"Well," the Captain says encouragingly. "We'll be in my cabin, and you take all the time you need."

"An hour," the Hoarder rasps sulkily. "No more."

An hour doesn't sound like nearly enough time for it to get any decent rest, but the Captain concludes that picking their battles is, in this case, the better part of valour. Little victories.

* * *

The point turns out to be moot; it’s nearly four hours before the Chiropterous Hoarder turns up on the Captain’s doorstep, rubbing sleep out of one eye with a joint that leads to something that isn’t quite a hand, one ear flopping the wrong way. It’s… the Captain, rising carefully from their desk, casts about for a word other than ‘cute’. ‘Endearing’ is almost as bad. ‘Undignified’, perhaps. Did the Hoarder roll straight out of bed upon waking to come find them?

Them as in its brood, that is. Not the Captain, who currently bears the dubious honour of serving as a climbing pole to the fuzzy little things. They’ve spent the last half hour climbing in and out of their coat pockets, cheeping with delight, which is infinitely preferable to when they were shrieking with delight, and, before that, just plain shrieking.

The Hoarder still hasn’t moved from the doorway. When the Captain takes another look at it, mildly concerned, it’s watching them with an unreadable expression that sends a frisson of an emotion they can’t name down the back of their neck. It’s eyes are as dark as the Wilderness outside the stained glass windows.

"You didn't feed them, did you?" it asks, after an uncomfortably long silence. Even its voice sounds healthier for the rest, more like a flute than a dying euphonium. "They’re not due for another week."

"Er, no," the Captain says, wrong-footed, breaking eye contact with the Hoarder’s impenetrable gaze. "One of them tried to take a bite out of the pangolin, but it didn’t have the jaw strength to get through the scales."

It was adorable. The pangolin, palm-sized, yet still easily twice the size of its fledgling assailant, very kindly pretended not to notice the attempt. Such a sweet, considerate creature. The Captain sent it off with the Sky-worn Urchin so the poor thing wouldn't become too stressed by sharing her space with a litter of rowdy infants.

The Hoarder sneers reflexively and shuffles further into the room, shaking off whatever momentary confusion had it frozen in the doorway. "It will have to learn to judge its prey more carefully."

"Well, it's just a baby," the Captain points out with a hint of a smile. One of the critters cuddled into the crook of their neck emits a squeak, almost as if in answer. The Captain smiles wider and shifts it into the palms of their hands, cradling it. "What?" they ask it conversationally. "You're not a baby? You're all grown up? Already big and strong like your parent?"

The Chiropterous Hoarder lets out a strangled sound, like a bellow being stepped on by an elephant.

"Stop it," it wheezes, voice tight. A clawed hand lands heavily on the Captain’s shoulder from behind. When did it get so close? "Don’t talk to them. You can't _bond_ with them. They're _mine_."

The Captain looks down at the creature cradled in their hands, smile wiped away. Tiny, perfectly shaped claws scratch lightly against their skin as the little one shuffles across the bridge of their fingers. It feels nothing like the Hoarder's.

 _Okay_ , they should say, because it is, after all, true. They’re very much its. And if they have, in the private hours of night, indulged in certain speculations based on weak conjecture and coincidences, it wouldn't give them the right, because they haven’t been invited, and anyway there’s no way they would ever submit themself to the mortifying prospect of outright asking, and--being struck down for their arrogant presumption. Being soundly mocked for thinking their small contribution mattered. Worst of all: Having it confirmed once and for all that they really played no role at all.

"I don't understand why," their treacherous mouth says. "You'll have them for the rest of their lives. Thousands and thousands of years; the few short decades until I die could scarcely occupy their memories."

Behind the Captain, the Hoarder inhales sharply, then holds the breath as if it is so angry that it’s struggling for words to express its rage. Crimson fabric abruptly fills the Captains vision as the Hoarder reaches around them and firmly turns them to face it, demanding their attention with inhuman hands on both their shoulders.

"Who," it demands harshly, "said you were allowed to die?"

"Er," the Captain says intelligently, because that’s not what they thought it would object to. "That is the usual way of things for humans. I wasn't aware I had other options?"

The Hoarder looks very much as if it actually can't believe the magnitude of the Captain’s stupidity, and is very seriously considering filing a complaint. "What did you think we have been accomplishing up until now!?"

The Captain’s brow furrows, confused and a tad offended, because they’re not _that_ stupid, thank you very much. Are they? "The tests you performed on me didn't work, remember? The real thing was for _you_."

The ‘real thing’ didn’t exactly work either, they don’t add. That would be both unkind and a poor idea, with the Hoarder already cross and bearing down on them from every side. Well, three sides.

"For myself _and_ my collection," the Hoarder retorts, voice turning uncomfortably shrill with its agitation. "Obviously I would have elevated you next!"

The Captain splutters. "Hang on. Now, alright, that’s very sweet, but I’m a _person_. You didn't think to ask me before deciding that you've 'collected' me!?"

"No," the Hoarder says indignantly, which, in the Captain's personal opinion, isn't great. "But you already agreed to it a hundred different ways, with everything you've done for and with me. The things you've brought me. The favours exchanged. You even acknowledged it yourself! You said you were _my_ captain."

They’re rendered speechless. Actually speechless. Centuries could have passed in the span it takes their thoughts to unfreeze from a state of numb stupor, and they would never know. "You have me there," they say, astonishingly calm only because they don't have the faintest idea what emotion to feel. If there is an appropriate one, they suspect it may be beyond human ability to feel. "I did say that."

The Hoarder nods as if the matter is settled, and decisively swoops down and picks them up, settling them on one many-jointed arm as if they weigh as little as an armful of treasure it intends to carry away to its hoard.

"Hey!" the Captain yelps over a chorus of alarmed squeaks, instinctively holding the youngling in their hands closer. "You still have to ask! Directly, with your words!"

"Why?"

Its eyes are earnestly uncomprehending, which is... not _not_ endearing, but makes the Captain feel keenly aware that it is absolutely, completely outside of their ability to convince the being holding them to develop an ethical obligation to care about living beings' right to freedom within the next five minutes.

"Because slavery isn't allowed on my engine," they say, a tad pained. "And also I want you to."

"A silly custom," the Hoarder frowns gravely. "But very well. I will ask."

The Captain blinks. Was it that easy? Perhaps not, because it continues, with that same insxrutable expression it had watching them in the doorway: "However, if it’s to be a bargain, I claim the right to negotiate. Before you give your answer, I will bring you to my chambers, undress you, and state my case to you in thorough, personal detail."

Oh. The Captain's face grows unmistakably hot, and they suddenly, deeply comprehend the emotion they couldn’t name earlier. Strangely, it seems to have moved from the back of their neck to somewhere by their thighs.

"Oh," they say stupidly. "In front of the little ones?"

Dozens of eyes peer up at once, as if aware they're being discussed. The Hoarder's face contorts into something the Captain is fairly certain is a severe frown.

"They will go to sleep," it says firmly. Its brood all manage to project a sense of pouting as one, despite having not a single humanoid feature between them. Their parent is utterly unmoved. The Captain isn’t, but their pity is vastly, absurdly outweighed by their… interest... in the Hoarder’s... rhetoric.

"That’s a good idea," they say unsteadily. "I wouldn’t want to be distracted from hearing your argument in full."

The Hoarder brightens immensely, clearly pleased with their embarrassed assent. "No," it agrees proudly, "you wouldn’t."

* * *

It does, in fact, carry them to its chambers. The Fortunate Navigator steps out of the Hoarder’s determined path with eyebrows raised; the Captain gives him an apologetic shrug over its shoulder. If the Clay Conductor notices them, he shows no sign of it, which is a little hurtful.

In its chamber, the Hoarder plucks its young off (and out of) the Captain's coat and into a box lined with fabric and pillows, one by one, then counts them twice before it's satisfied that all are accounted for. The box is left in the outer chamber while the Hoarder leads the Captain into the inner cabin and tenderly presses them into the lavish nest of pillows of all fabrics and sizes that evidently serves as its bed--but it leaves the door open a crack.

And then it's settling above them, and its attention focused fully on them is an overwhelming weight that leaves them short of breath.

They never got this far the first time, after the feast. (That was, the Captain supposes, one of those times they said yes.) The Hoarder placed them on the dinner table and took great pleasure in painting their skin with the leftovers, then licking them off, then licking other things, and it was good, and great fun, and they were tremendously sated--but it never looked at them like this, calculating and determined, like a cut of meat it’s deciding how to haggle out of its seller. It’s a little intoxicating.

The Hoarder's claws are gentle when unbuttoning their clothes, peeling each layer off with a measured care that feels like teasing. When a brush of skin against an unexpectedly-textured pillow startles an inarticulate noise out of the increasingly anticipatory Captain, it pauses entirely in its task, leaving its subject's arms wound in their sleeves while it explores, in thorough detail, what sounds it can draw out of them purely with teasing touches from a variety of fabrics.

(It doesn’t make them beg. But they would have, at times, if it had asked.)

Much later, they lie spent against a warm, furry chest, tracing fingers over patches where the fur is thin enough that they can feel impossibly soft skin stretched over an unusually shaped rib cage. Claws card lazily through their hair, every now and then scratching lightly at the nape of their neck.

They hear its breath hitch in its lungs beneath their cheek a moment before its hands move to their hips, lifting them with casual ease. It sets them upright, legs straddling its chest, heedless of the slick mess smearing their thighs, leaving it peering up at them with wary apprehension in its eyes.

"I'm ready to ask now," it announces reluctantly. "I’ve shown you how well I treat my things. Will you be mine?"

"Yes," they say instantly. "And I would have said yes if you had let me think about it on my own, too."

It puffs up, obviously taken aback. "Then why did you insist on this silly negotiation?"

"You're the one who assumed I needed to be convinced. It was the asking that mattered."

"Why? If you were going to say yes anyway, what difference does it make?"

"It makes all the difference," they say with what feels like frankly saint-like patience. "Before you agreed to ask, it was going to be a no. And then neither of us would have been having fun right now."

The Hoarder blinks up at them, bewilderment clear in every line of its expression. "Strange species," it mutters.

"Yes, well, if that’s settled, I have a question of my own." The Captain shifts slightly, likely smearing the Hoarder's torso further--so much for it getting cleaned up. "What do you actually envision this entailing? Because, and i don't mean to hurt your feelings here, but I need it to be absolutely clear that you're not going to be keeping me in a cage."

Well, they mentally amend, suppressing a traitorous urge to squirm. Maybe not _never_. Going by the thoughtful way the Hoarder is looking at them, it may be having similar thoughts.

"I have duties," they remind it with all the dignity they can muster. "I still captain this engine."

"Yes, yes. I have no interest in taking your things. I don't want your vessel." It grimaces, a tad huffy. "Your crew wouldn't obey me, anyway. Humans are impossible to herd as a group. The more of you there are, the less predictable you become. You’re welcome to the headache."

The Captain considers the sentiment beneath its words for a moment, then leans down and presses a kiss to its furred brow.

"That's surprisingly generous of you."

"No," it frowns. "That’s not true. Take that back."

"Really? The only demand you’ve made of me so far is that I need your permission to die. You don’t even understand the things I'm asking for. You think they're stupid. But you're saying yes to them anyway. Why?"

The Hoarder looks uncomfortable. A clawed hand comes to rest at the Captain's back, and it slowly, gently turns them over until they are laid out on the pillows, and it is hovering over them, wings stretching behind it until they fill the entire room. How long would it take to map those wings with lips and hands? The Captain feels enfolded, but not afraid.

"Ensuring my property has the ability to thrive isn't charity," it whispers urgently. It clearly considers this an important statement. "No more than polishing a treasure to its fullest luster."

It's silent for a moment.

"You've assumed," it says gravely, "that the nature of ownership is that I would prefer to keep you pickled in brine and silent in a jar like my specimens, and anything else is mere concession on my part. But why would I need to expend the added burden of keeping you trapped when you keep coming back?"

The Captain looks up at it thoughtfully. "You like that I come back? When you first came aboard, my visits seemed to annoy you."

"They did. Truths change."

"Well. It is attractive that you want me at my shiniest," the Captain murmurs, reaching up to stroke the velvet fur at its collar. It puffs in obvious pride.

"You _should_ be attracted to me. I have many strengths. A fine collection. Proven fertility."

"And you're an excellent cook. An attentive lover."

"A visionary mind."

"Definitely a visionary mind," they agree, stifling a laugh by kissing it again.

* * *

"So." The Captain, scrubbed clean and partially dressed in shirtsleeves, sits at the Hoarder’s small but neat dinner table. They're absently wiggling their fingers above the box of babies, dodging clumsy attempts to swipe at them.

The Hoarder, equally scrubbed clean, is chopping up a dark purple object approximately the size and shape of a human heart that the Captain assumes is meant for the sizzling skillet on the stove next to it.

"Yes?" it prompts when they fail to continue.

They clear their throat, trying--failing--to sound casual. "So. Well. If they’re yours, and I’m yours, what’s wrong with us bonding, exactly?"

The Hoarder scrapes thick, juice-sticky slices into its pan, inerrant without looking, dark eyes turned instead to the Captain. The babies that have already crawled back into their parent’s fur are visible only as glints of reflected light in tiny eyes like strings of beads at its throat.

"This is the most malleable time of their lives," it says, finally, reluctantly, as if it’s not entirely convinced it should be explaining this to them. "I have… plans, thoughts, ideas. Things to try. Outside influences will muddy the results."

The angry hiss of oil from the pan brings its attention back to its cooking, and for a while, the Captain watches it flip the cuts, add more spices than any Albion chef would ever dream, then begin to break down an exceedingly small bird with quick, sure efficiency. Did they have quail? The Captain doesn’t remember ever seeing it on the supplies manifest.

More ingredients join the pan, some recognizable, some not, all melding into a fragrant harmony that they can only trust is edible. The Hoarder thoughtfully pierces a slice of meat with a surprisingly careful claw, and carries it to the table, a silent offering. The Captain blinks, but obediently accepts the morsel, soft lips briefly touching the tip of its claw. The startled noise they make when the claw presses further into their mouth, settling lightly against their tongue, should perhaps be embarrassing; the Hoarder certainly looks smug about it.

"You’re too gentle, my dear," it admonishes. "I could slice your jaw off with a twitch, and you let me put my _claws_ in your _mouth_. That’s what you’d teach my little ones; that there’s _kindness_ and _charity_ in the world."

The Captain makes an inarticulate sound of protest around the claw; if they could, they might point out that they weren’t raised on milk and honey. They’ve done their share of killing and lying to survive. They’ve allowed things to happen on this very vessel that haunt their sleep and leave them with bruises under their eyes in the morning. Does it think they would lie to them?

But apparently, they’re not allowed to state their case.

"It isn’t unusual for half a litter to die on their first flight," it continues quietly. "If they learn weakness from you, they’re doomed from the start."

The claw pops out of their mouth, momentarily connected by a string of spit, until the Hoarder teasingly smears it across their cheek.

"Oh, don’t look so dour, sweetling. Tell me how you like the flavour of that."

The Captain wipes at their cheek with a sour grimace that definitely isn’t a pout, chewing the piece of meat. "It’s good," they reluctantly admit. "Better than anything you usually serve the crew."

"I don’t cook for the crew. I simplify my menus for those sledgehammers you call cooks; your kind get so picky about knowing what’s in your food and where it comes from."

"That’s often something we value, yes."

"Well, never mind that now," it says, and places a colorful plate in front of them.

"You’re not having any?" they ask after a few bites, feeling just a tad pinned under the intensity with which it is watching them.

"No. I made it with your physiology in mind."

They place their fork down and pluck something vaguely resembling a vegetable from the plate with their fingers, holding it up to the Hoarder. "Promise I won’t claw your jaw off," they say mildly.

Its eyes narrow dangerously, but it encloses their entire hand in its mouth with great gentleness, sharp teeth only a teasing whisper against the thin skin at their wrist.

"If you’re going to say this is naive too, I must remind you that you’ve already had any number of my body parts in your mouth." Some of them on this very day, even. "I have precedent to think you won’t bite my arm off this time."

It turns their hand over and licks a hot stripe up their palm. "You’ve given it thought, but your conclusion is flawed. I don’t wish to bite your arm off this time, but it doesn’t automatically follow that I won’t the next."

"That’s true for anyone. Trust is always a leap of faith. Anyway, if it makes a difference in whether or not you decide to bite me,"--they tug their hand out of its grip and roll up the sleeve to show deep, old marks of teeth half-way up their forearm--"you were already beaten to the punch."

While the Hoarder traces their scars with its claws, they pick up their fork with their free hand. No sense letting the food go cold.

"These were made by Mr Spices," it remarks thoughtfully. "How ever did you get close enough to that one to anger it?"

"It gave me a job," they say between bites, "I’d just aged out of the urchin gangs, so I was willing to take whatever came my way. Even if it called me an idiot."

"And you… what? Failed it?"

"Not exactly." They look uncomfortable. "It was in a bad way, dabbling in things it was trying to keep secret from the rest of you. Things got out of hand."

"You’re being obtuse. None of this matters any longer; why try to protect its secrets?"

"You’re going to be cross if I tell you."

The Hoarder looks deeply unimpressed. The Captain takes back their arm, rolls down their sleeve, then holds out the last forkful of food.

"I pitied it," they say. The Hoarder looks at them for a long moment, then bows its head to accept the fork. The fork emerges unscathed, which they choose to take as a good sign. "It was so... sad, and so alone. It had nothing. And I felt horrible about the whole thing, and I went to--oh, what was his name--Mr Wines’ favorite human. Is that my title now?"

"You want to be Mr Wines’ favorite human?"

"No! Am I _your_ favorite human?"

"If you start introducing yourself as ‘Mr Apples’ favorite human’, Victoria is going to have you killed, and then she’s going to have something worse done to me. Go on with the story."

"You know that's not what I meant. Well, I went to Mr Wines’ servant, and I told him I knew what happened to the missing--supply--Mr Spices was using, and then I lied my ass off. Just sent him on the wildest goose chase I could think of. All because I felt so incredibly miserable for a guy who damn near bit my arm off."

"Don’t feel bad," the Hoarder says drily. "Everyone lied to Wines. It wouldn’t have known what to do with your honesty, if you had given it."

"You’re not taking me seriously."

"And you’re still not telling me what actually happened. But never mind, I’ve lost interest. We were all deteriorating, towards the end. You may have been right to think many of us pathetic." The Hoarder stands, an abrupt reminder of how big it really is--bigger here in the present than those tall, ever-present cloaked figures in their dim memories of London. "You've only reminded me to be glad I had the strength to break free."

"I had a vision, I think," they persist. "I saw the High Wilderness. I saw myself with my wings stretched between the stars. I wanted to follow, but I couldn't move. I felt like I was grieving, after. For days."

It blinks, nonplussed. "Ah. So that's what happened to the missing Sphinxstone." It sets a clawed appendage that really isn't much like a hand at all on the Captain’s head, stroking their hair for a moment. "Those memories were not your home, Captain. But if you want wings, I'll keep it in mind when I start planning how to improve you."

"Not settling for just making me immortal?" they ask with not very much surprise at all; they remember its fervent enthusiasm, during that first test. It made them less afraid of the coffin. Their body has never been quite right, anyway.

"I promised you your _full_ luster, dear. We're already committing a Treachery. We might as well get all the fun out of it we can."

"Sure. I want final approval on those plans."

It frowns. "You may not be able to fully comprehend their purpose and wisdom until after the upgrade. Your mind is so very small still."

"I have full faith in your ability to convey their meaning to me so I can make a fully informed decision."

"Oh, alright," it pouts, "If you put it that way."

"I do." The Captain pushes themself to their feet, capturing the Hoarder’s hand before it can pull it away, and presses a smiling kiss to its thumb joint. One of its thumb joints. A claw catches restlessly on their skin.

"I do actually have to attend to my duties, but, listen…" They glance down to the Hoarder’s collar, but no tiny eyes peer back; perhaps they’ve all fallen back asleep. "If it starts to get that bad again, let me help. If you have conditions, that’s fine. I get it. You want to protect them. I can refrain from interacting with them in any way you mislike. Just... don’t let me see you work yourself until you collapse."

The Hoarder draws itself up, eyeing the Captain with some solemn emotion that they can’t read. "I will consider it," it says quietly. It sounds suddenly bone tired, though it has a different quality than when it was struggling to stand from exhaustion. As if it feels all its years weighing on it. "It will take some preparation. Variables accounted for."

They nod, unreasonably grateful. It’s not exactly what they might have wanted, but it feels like it’s trying to let them in, in its own way. That can’t be easy for it.

It seems to shake off the mood while the Captain finishes dressing, and goes out of its way to escort them to its door--but, before they can reach for the handle, it presses them gently chest-first against the door, crowding close behind them. When they try to look back, they're met with soft fur nuzzling the side of their head.

"One last thing, Captain," the Hoarder murmurs sweetly in their ear, "Since your interest is so flattering. If you want a litter of your own, all you have to do is ask. Directly. With your words."

The Captain inhales audibly, then holds that breath until the count of ten, heartbeat thundering in their ears. The Hoarder’s bulk is like a furnace against their back.

"I have to oversee the night shift," they gasp breathlessly, like a coward. "Have a good night, Quartermaster. Get some rest. Good night!"

They could _swear_ they glimpse the Hoarder's cloaked form shaking with mirth behind them before the door closes between them.

Bastard.


End file.
